Writer and Director: Oktay Baraheni
The Old Bachelor is a deeply unsympathetic character, a nasty and volatile man who regularly goes head-to-head with his two adult sons who he abuses, physically fights and disrespects, forcing them to fit around his changing moods. Oktay Baraheni’s The Old Bachelor, screening at the London Breeze Festival 2024, is a portrait of unrestrained and boorish masculinity until the introduction of a female neighbour takes the film in a different direction. Running at over 3 hours, an excessive screentime, Iranian filmmaker Baraheni creates engaging characters and a scenario but eventually runs out of steam.
Grumpy lothario Gholam Bastani lives with his sons Reza, an agent, and Ali, a bookstore worker who he bullies. When the beautiful Rana (Leila Hatami), a designer and artist, moves in upstairs,Gholam insists they are destined to marry but his sons and his friends refuse to believe him. Desperate to impress her, Gholam finds ways to ingratiate himself into her flat but Rana is quickly alarmed by his presence and tries to deter him.
The Old Bachelor is a story about inter-generational rivalry between an older man and his sons; the former thinks the younger men are useless and lazy, while they fantasise about killing the curmudgeonly and entitled elder. And it is also a film about the differences between business and art careers, with Ali disregarded by his family for his cultured conversation and disparaged for being an ‘intellectual’ repeatedly. These contending versions of masculinity are as entertaining as they are delusionary in a film that digs into the consequence of their behaviours.
But it is a film that prioritised character over plot, fleshing out the clashing personalities of the men as they actively vie for Rana’s attention, suggesting a direction in its first and second hour that will focus on who she chooses and why. The clashing ideas about masculinity, contrasting Gholam’s unfiltered brutality with Ali’s gentler artistic appeal are interesting and seem likely to take the film in an obvious direction until the third Act throws up some rather bleak surprises as director Baraheni increases the family pressure and the consequences of these unchecked power struggles between the generations.
The Old Bachelor is an unremitting film with a strong, almost too intense performance from Hassan Pourshirazi as the title character Gholam that will get under your skin and make you shudder. Hamed Behdad’s Ali is sympathetic if ineffectual, too broken by his father to really stake a claim to life while Reza (Mohammad Valizadegan) is little more than a sketch, someone for Ali to speak to and share complaints about the excessive behaviour of their parent.
Overlong at more than 3 hours, the film slips into melodrama in its final portion looking for a dramatic conclusion which could be considerably edited, but Baraheni’s film is a stark and compelling portrait of a father and his terrified sons that shows the limits of freedom even for men when their abuser is this powerful.
The Old Bachelor is screening at the London Breeze Film Festival 2024 from 24-27 October.
The Reviews Hub Score:
Unrestrained
